The first thing I noticed was the overall cleanliness.  London is definitely a city that prides itself on appearance.  This infatuation with appearance is manifested in the ceremony and ritual found throughout the city.   This provides many spectacles for eager visitors.

London appears to be a city growing with no contemporary master plan.  It appears that high rise buildings are built into existing fabric with little concern towards scale or history.  I mention this in contrast to a city such as Paris, which has a distinct attitude towards growth with the creation of the La Defense area.

London appears to be a city much like Boston in that it is constituted of different areas or districts, but they seem to have a better relationship to one another due to the interrelationship of the river Thames, and the orientation of urban park space. Also a key to this success is the use of thoroughfares which lead to orientation points or landmarks. This reminds me the strategies used by Hausman in Paris and Sixtus IV in Rome. In London theses areas or points become places in which Londoners from different areas have the possibility of encounters with each other, as opposed to being contained within a specific geographic location. These points for me seemed to exemplify the true character of the city.